ISLAMABAD:
The Senate was all smiles Friday when a lady senator, in a bid to praise
Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique for his good job, compared him
with India’s corruption-tainted ex-railway minister Lalu Prasad.

The
House, which saw angry senators expressing anguish over plight of Fata
people during an on-going debate, also witnessed light moments during
the question hour.

Senator Kulsoom Parveen of the
BNP-Awami, apparently oblivious of the recent conviction of Lalu in a 17
years old fodder corruption case, said that Saad Rafique was performing
as good as the Indian minister. This prompted several senators to rise
on their seats to inform her about the bitter fact about Lalu.

“By
this, I mean Lalu had done a very good service to the Indian railways
as its minister. I did not refer to his other issues,” the lady senator
explained.

Replying questions, Saad Rafique complained
that despite clear orders of the Supreme Court, the provinces were not
ready to give back land to the railways and that was why they had
decided to take the matter to the Council of Common Interests (CCI).

The
minister noted that the Railways Ministry wanted to earn revenue from
the commercial use of its land, as was successfully being done in India.
He said this process had been started from Karachi, wherein cold
storages and hotels could be built.

Regarding the Royal
Palm issue, Saad Rafique said initially the lease was for 33 years that
was increased to 49 years and the leased land was 120 acres that was
also enhanced to 141 acres. He added the ministry had filed a petition
in the Supreme Court and urged for early hearing of the same.

He
said an amount of Rs25 million payable by the party to which the land
was leased out was not paid, forcing the government to write a
termination letter on this count.The minister noted that no new
passenger train would be launched until the freight trains were equal in
number to the passenger trains.

Presently, 25 goods
trains are in operation and two of these are for transportation of PSO’s
oil products. There are 96 passenger trains on tracks presently.About
accidents on unmanned railway crossings, he said security on the
crossings was the provincial governments’ responsibility and there were a
total of 2,442 railway crossings across Pakistan. He added that the
ministry had banned opening of new such crossings.

The
minister said he had meetings with provincial secretaries and even chief
ministers regarding railway crossings. He maintained that the issue of
crossings could be solved in next five years if provinces provide funds
for this purpose.Saad Rafique made it clear that in future the ministry
would allow only underpasses or flyovers at railway tracks and no more
new railway crossings will be allowed.

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The voice of PMLN is a volunteer non official blog of Pakistan Muslim League (N). The views expressed here are my own and may not reflect the party stance on various issues. The only intent of this blog is to make it the largest archival site for PMLN.